Starz Entertainment will be shifting to an all-iTX transmission system later this year with the assistance of OmniBus Systems. The Englewood, Colo.-based specialty network will be making the shift to iTX at both its main operations center and a nearby disaster recovery/backup facility.
The company said that the move was necessitated by a replacement of video servers that are soon to be unsupported, and a desire to upgrade its legacy SD and HD transmission infrastructure. Starz also wants to tap IT technology for its transmission application.
“Starz had envisioned a migration to software- and IT-based broadcast server technologies for some time, and when OmniBus brought iTX to the market, it was a great fit for us,” said Ray Milius, senior vice president of programming operations at Starz Entertainment. “The logic is compelling: we've already realized great success and large cost savings by taking a software-based approach in other aspects of our operation, and that will now translate very effectively to the production and playout side. iTX is a robust platform that allows us to scale our operations as we need to, with the future-proof assurance that running on standard IT hardware brings.”
Starz plans to duplicate its existing operational setup in nearly every aspect with iTX technology and is looking forward to the additional flexibility that the new system will provide. The company sources 16 movie channels.
